"They battle, they get after it. Their guards are very good," said Head Coach Gary McKnight of Loyola's Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Jacob Hazzard. Jackson-Cartwright nearly sealed the deal for the Cubs, however, Mater Dei's combo of senior center Xavier Johnson and sophomore forward Stanley Johnson put the clamps on Loyola's efforts.
The crowd at the Anaheim Convention Center was in a frenzy for most of the evening, as 4th seeded Loyola put up a valiant effort against Mater Dei. Jackson-Cartwright scored a team-high 17 points for Loyola, who fell 61-58 to the Monarchs at the CIF Southern Section Division 1AA Boys Basketball Semifinals. The Monarch's own Johnson & Johnson combined for 39 points, including several hookups that could have cracked ESPN's Sportscenter Top 10 (video below). Easy to imagine when you take into consideration the fact that (Stanley) Johnson won a Gold Medal in the 2011 FIBA Americas U16 Championship.
The early stages of the game were not very pretty for McKnight's team. Although the Monarch's have appeared in the CIF Section semifinals in 29 of the past 30 seasons, their start was unusually sluggish. UNLV commit Katin Reinhardt was unable to find his stroke from behind-the-arc, and the Monarchs hoops squad (ESPN Fab50 No. 8) trailed by 10 in the third quarter.
Mater Dei chipped away at the scoreboard and went on a 7-point run in the fourth quarter that turned a 52-48 Loyola lead into a 55-52 advantage for the Monarchs. "We played alright. We played good in the second half of the game. We came out the first half alright, kind of flat... Fourth quarter we really locked down defensively, and got our shots off," Stanley Johnson told CLA Sports after the game. Johnson continued, "We hadn't played them this year, and it's the first team in California that's really been fast, and been able to run with us... and use their athletic ability just as good as us." The Monarch's final run proved to be the proverbial 'nail in the coffin' for the Cubs, however, not before Jackson-Cartwright made things interesting with a late three-pointer for Loyola.
It's no doubt that the Monarchs have much respect for the young Loyola team, and Mater Dei's rising sophomore Stanley Johnson knows he'll be seeing more of the Cubs in the future. In addition to sophomore phenom Parker Jackson-Cartwright, who holds scholarship offers from the likes of UCLA, Arizona State, USC and Washington, the Cubs also feature freshman Max Hazzard and 6'11" sophomore center Thomas Welsh.
"Parker's a killer. He has a killer instinct. He's really aggressive and he has moves that you really can't stop... he makes tough shots all the time. There's really nothing you can do with it, but hope he misses sometimes. He got good shots off, he played really well and kept his team in the game. But, we ended up comin' up with the win," said the sophomore Johnson.
Mater Dei faces off against Long Beach Poly for the CIF Southern Section Division 1AA Boys Championship.
